Website design, pillar #2, aims to make the best use of the keywords you
have chosen for your site. In addition this pillar helps you position your
keywords in the most appropriate places on your site.
The main aspects of pillar #2 consist of behind the scenes coding, navigation
structure, onsite optimization, the precise relevance of each page and improving
conversion rates.

Behind-the-scenes coding

The ‘behind the scenes’ coding on any website needs to be as efficient as possible
to assist with search engine optimization. When designing sites using software
such as Dreamweaver, although it’s constantly getting better, surplus and
repeated code can sometimes still be generated. For example, in Dreamweaver,
if you highlight some text and make it bold, then remove the bold at a later point,
some duplicate code has been known to be produced.

Note that this isn’t any slight on Dreamweaver – Dreamweaver is probably one
of the best pieces of software available for designing a beautiful website without
any knowledge of HTML code – but you can never 100% replicate the ability of a
human website coder.

So while some software is excellent for designing websites, the best solution for
optimizing the code is somebody manually checking to ensure all unnecessary
code is taken out.

The use of cascading style sheets

One method of keeping your web page code as tidy as possible is the use of
something called cascading style sheets. Among other things, cascading style
sheets (or CSS for short) help you reduce the repetition of code that might
otherwise be required when you have a particularly repetitious design style on
your pages.

Examples of such styles might include common fonts for headings, subheadings
and links throughout the site.

Another advantage (in addition to the reduction of your website source code) of
using cascading style sheets and storing all of your styles in the one file is that it
gives you the facility to quickly and easily alter just the one file on your website
in order to amend the properties of any one element across your entire website.
(For example the style of any main heading that appears on your website)

Ordering your website code in an efficient manner

One thing you need to be aware of is that search engines crawl through your
website source code in order to try to understand what each of your web pages is
about. They don’t see your design – just the code behind your design. And the
higher up within your code the relevant content, the easier that search engines
will find it to determine that your web page is about a particular topic.

If you have a flashy, involved top section at the top of each of your website
pages, then the chances are that there is a great deal of code that is required to
make that top section display correctly.

In an ideal website design, your code will get to your main page heading as soon
as possible, shortly followed by the body content on your web page. This is the
main reason why lots of blogs display their site navigation toward the right hand
side of each page. It means that search engines crawl through the post content
before they get to the standard site navigation, so there is a greater chance that
this page will be ranked higher in search engine results for the body content.

Website navigation for visitors and search engines

It is of great benefit to you when you tailor your website navigation towards
both users and search engines.  Within your website navigation structure you often have categories, subcategories and individual relevant pages within these sub-categories.

If a web page features ‘backwards compatible navigation’, this will allow a
person who has reached an individual page in a website, either via a search
engine or an external link, to understand where that page fits into the website as
a whole. The navigation should provide them with the option of browsing your
site and if they can easily understand your structure they will be more likely to
visit another individual page within the site.

Figure 2.1 – Trek the UK travel guide
http://www.trektheuk.com/cornwall.php

For example, in figure 2.1, when somebody stumbles upon this page which is
about a place called Cornwall in England, they immediately understand where
this it fits into the website as a whole. They’re therefore much more likely to
continue to browse through the website.

This associated navigation also helps search engines by showing them the topics
that are associated with the page, therefore justifying why the search engine
should rank the page as more relevant for a particular topic.

The navigation on the page in question reads as follows:

Home > Places to go > England > Southwest England > Cornwall
Home > [Category] > [Sub-category] > [Sub-sub-category] > [Individual page]
A visitor can quickly familiarize themselves with the website and navigate
through the different categories.

Another helpful pointer for search engines is to include the keyword phrases
within a text link that points to a page. This keyword phrase needs to reflect the
content on the page that the link points towards – and not the page on which the
text link resides.

For example, if you wanted to link to a page which was about ‘French language
courses’ and you linked to that page with a text link that contained the words
‘French language courses’, this would be assisting with the search engine
optimization of the landing page.

This is another reason why in the example above, the text ‘England’ and
‘Southwest England’ is used within the navigation links. It greatly assists with
the search engine optimization of the landing pages.

Onsite optimization
There are 8 essential aspects of onsite optimization. These are things that you
should be aware of and should instruct your website designer to design your site
in a manner that appeals most to search engines.

1. Page Title
Your page title can be found in the (commonly blue) bar at the very top of your
website browsing software. (i.e. Internet Explorer / Firefox / Safari etc)

In figure 2.2, the page title text in the blue bar says “The internet marketing
strategy specialists – Purple Internet Marketing”.

Figure 2.2 – Purple Internet Marketing

The ‘Page Title’ text can be found in the blue bar at the top of this screenshot
The Page Title serves the dual purpose of helping your users understand what
the page is about, as well as providing search engines with a keyword phrase
inside the Page Title.

It is important that your site should use different Page Titles on individual pages
in order to optimize each page on your website. This will enable individual
pages to be found by a search engine. Failing to do this will have a detrimental
effect on your web page rankings in search engines.

When search engine results are displayed the Page Title is the link that is
underlined. By making the page title as relevant to the search as possible, the
searcher is more likely to find what they are looking for and click through to
your website.

Of course the Page Title must explain to people exactly what is on each page too
– otherwise you’re your new website visitors aren’t going to hang around too long.

2. Meta Description
Although the meta-description isn’t generally thought by search engine
optimization professional to be part of the search engine ranking algorithm, this
meta tag can still significantly positively impact your search engine result view
to click conversion rates.
To view the meta-description you can enter an individual web page and right
click to select ‘view source’ or ‘view page source’. This enables you to see the
code behind the individual web pages and near the top you are most likely to
find the meta-description.

Figure 2.3 – Page Source of BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz
View of the page source

The meta-description viewed as highlighted in figure 2.3 begins ‘Business
Articles – Latest business news & management advice’.

At the time of writing if you search Google for ‘business articles’, the number one
result is the website www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz. (Figure 2.4) When you
view the descriptive text underneath the clickable title you will see that the text
used in the description has been taken from the meta-description.

Figure 2.4 – Google Search
Searching Google for ‘business articles’
This shows why conversion rates from a user viewing a search engine result to
the user deciding to click through to the website can be significantly improved. If
you manage to include a meta-description in the search results which is
extremely relevant to the users’ search then it is much more likely that the user
will decide to click through to the website.

Note: If you decide not to use a meta-description in your website coding, or if a
search engine deems your meta description to be irrelevant compared with the
content on your page then the search engine may instead decide to use some
alternative content from within your page as the description with the search
result. This is generally extremely unfavorable when it comes to trying to
improve your conversion rates.

Remember – you do not need to incorporate the keyword phrase within your
meta-description – this probably won’t influence search engines. The most
important thing is that you tailor your meta-descriptions towards users and
trying to persuade users to visit your page without being misleading.

It is fairly simple to ensure that your meta-description is different for each page
on your site. If you are using a content management system, you can commonly
generate the meta-description automatically, potentially from the first few lines
of your main page content. However, ideally it is good to have the facility to
include manual meta-descriptions with each page. In addition to individual page
titles, this will significantly improve your conversion rates from search engine
result (SERP) pages.

3. Heading Tags
Heading tags should appear either side of a heading within a page. For example
the heading in figure 2.5, the home page of www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz is
‘Latest business articles’.
Some hidden tags behind the source code of that heading explain to search
engines that this is an important heading, and therefore that provides a very
good indication to search engines about the content on the page.

If you view the source code behind the page (View > Source in Internet Explorer)
you will be able to see the heading tags in the source code. Heading tags consist
of text enclosed by <Hx> where x is a numerical value from 1 to 6, with 1 being
the most important of headings.

For main headings like ‘Latest Business Articles’ (the heading shown in figure
2.5) the code generated will look like:
<H1>Latest Business Articles</H1>
Remember, the purpose of heading tags is to help explain to search engines what
your page is about. If you have your keyword phrase within the heading tag, it
is more likely that search engines will consider that your page is likely to be
about your keyword phrase topic.

Figure 2.5 – BuildYourOwnBusiness
www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz

4. ‘ALT’ Tags
‘ALT’ tags are alternative text that appears if an image does not display properly.
Sometimes if you hover over an image with your mouse the ‘ALT’ text will be
displayed. ‘ALT’ tags originated in the 1990s when Internet pages were slow to
load because of dial-up connections. The text appeared instead of the image,
describing what the image was. Users could then click on this text to download
the image if required.

However, ‘ALT’ tags now have several additional uses. They can be used to help
to explain to search engines what your pages and images are about, again
helping your site ranking. Additionally they provide a route into your website
when people are searching for images using Google Image Search or MSN Image
Search. If you have ‘ALT’ text associated with each image it is more likely those
images will appear in search results, increasing the traffic to your site.
‘ALT’ tags are also beneficial for visually impaired people who use software to
read pages out loud. If you have text that explains what images are, it assists the
software and makes your site more accessible, also giving your site greater
compliance with certain web standards.

5. Keyword Rich Navigation
Within your website, you should be linking to different pages using keyword
phrases. The keyword phrase should reflect the content of the page that you are
linking towards. For example, if I am linking to a page about change management
articles, ideally, I want to be using the text, ‘change management articles’ within
the text link to that page. (Figure 2.6)

Figure 2.6 – BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz

An example of keyword rich navigation
The orange ‘Change Management Articles’ text link links to the page which can
be seen in figure 2.7.

In figure 2.7, there are aspects that optimize this page for the ‘Change
Management Articles’ keyword phrase. You can find the phrase ‘Change
Management Articles’ within the page title, heading tags, page content and links
towards that page.

Figure 2.7 – www.BuildYourOwnBusiness.biz
The ‘Change Management Articles’ page

6. Good URL Format
The URL does not really impact search engine optimization a great deal, but it is
important to have a consistent URL structure within your website that search
engines can follow.

Some websites have their pages generated from databases with long URLs that
aren’t consistent because they change depending on which users are visiting
your website and what they are looking at. This isn’t good, as search engines will
find it hard to determine which URL is the correct one and which one should be
ranked.

Just remember that if you make things easier for search engines then they are less
likely to come up with an excuse not to rank your web pages as highly as they
might otherwise be ranked.

There is often no need to have lots of question marks and different query strings
within a URL. Try and make them as simple as possible. For example, the
following formats of URLs are ideal:
www.buildyourownbusiness.biz/change-management-articles
(category URL)
www.buildyourownbusiness.biz/change-management-articles/what-ischange-
management
(page URL)

7. Don’t Link to the Same Page in Two Different Ways
Many websites link to their homepage within their own site by using /index.html
at the end of their URL. The reason that website designers do this is that this the
way to tell your internet browser to load a particular page as the first page when
somebody visits your website.

However, all you need to do is link to your home page using your main domain
name for example www.buildyourownbusiness.biz, instead of
www.buildyourownbusiness.biz/index.html. You should also ensure that you
are consistent with your choice of whether or not you use ‘www.’

Using more than one format of link for the same page could dilute the impact of
your linking structure. If you have links within your site using one format, but
have links from other websites in a different format, then it can reduce the
popularity of your homepage with search engines.
(i.e. if you link to your homepage using www.yourdomain.com/index.htm from
within your site yet other sites just use www.yourdomain.com)

The reason that you should just stick to the one format of link is because search
engines are less likely to rank your site highly if they are not able to recognize
how popular your site actually is. In addition, as a worst case scenario from
these duplicate styles of linking, search engines may think that these two
different pages offering duplicate content. This means that they may choose to
de-rank one of these pages completely because they think you are offering
duplicate content on your website.

8. Use ‘No Follow’ tags where appropriate
The final aspect of on-site search engine optimization that I’d like to include here
is the use of ‘No Follow’ tags within your linking structure.
‘No Follow’ tags enable you to tell search engines ‘Don’t rank this page’ or ‘Don’t
rank these pages’ because they are not important.

Pages that you do not want to be ranked in search engines should make use of
the ‘No Follow’ tag, for example the ‘about us’, ‘disclaimer’ or ‘terms &
conditions’ pages within your website. There may well be lots of pages within
your site that you do not want search engines to include in their results pages.
By deliberately diverting search engines away from certain pages, search engines
are more likely to focus their efforts on determining what the rest of your site is
about and rank the rest of the pages in your site more highly.

The format of a ‘No Follow’ tag looks like:
<a href=http://www.buildyourownbusiness.biz> rel=“nofollow”>About
Us</a>
If you are constructing a simple HTML link, and you don’t want search engines
pass any credence to the page that you’re linking towards, you should include
the ‘nofollow’ attribute.

More site architecture tips
Make sure that you stick to one precise topic per page. It is not just one keyword
phrase per page, but it is one relevant, precise topic per page that is relevant for
users. This will make life as easy as possible for search engines – so you’ll have a
good chance of getting a high search engine result – and getting a high
conversion of users clicking through to your pages – and those visitors staying
on their site because they’re immediately aware of the precise nature of the page.
Have a logical progression within as well as within your individual pages.
(Remember the navigation in figure 2.1) This will encourage users to progress
through your site after stumbling upon your page through a search engine result
page.

Less is often more when it comes to conversion rates. You may want to
minimize navigation on some pages and give people less options. This in turn
drives your website visitors towards the one option that you really want them to
choose.

Precise relevance of each page
Each page within your website needs to be extremely relevant. Why not survey
your visitors and ask them how you can improve your website? This may help
you reduce the amount of visitors who leave within a few seconds of arriving –
thinking that your site is not relevant for their needs.

You’ve done the hard work when you get visitors to visit your website after
finding your pages listed in search engine result pages. Don’t uncoil your efforts
by making your site seem irrelevant for you visitors’ needs.

Your web pages should be designed for your visitors – with search engines in
mind. Don’t overload your pages with keyword phrases or make your visitors
have to scroll to read the content that they are looking for. The best optimized
web pages don’t look ‘optimized’.

Improving conversion rates
Improving conversion rates should be another imperative area of focus within
website design. You need think about what your goals are for an individual
visitor in addition to how you will measure your goals. Do you simply want
people to leave a name, an email address, and get them to fill in a form? These
types of goals are the easiest to measure.

Other goals you might have include – selling something; tracking free
downloads; tracking link clicks or tracking pages viewed to name just a few.
Many businesses will want to capture contact details of visitors e.g. name, email
address etc. An important though is that you shouldn’t rely on search engines
forever for free traffic in you business model, as your website might not be
ranked highly by Google or Yahoo or MSN forever. You should aim to build an
email list in order to reduce your reliance on search engines in the future.

A final important aspect of improving conversion rates is to test different sales
techniques. Software programs such as AWeber and Google AdWords will let
you display different versions of the same page and test alternative versions
against each other. You can test your headings on your pages, your descriptions,
or even the text within a button. This will help you to produce the optimum
versions of your copy.

Perhaps you don’t need all the information that you’re requesting your visitors
for? Maybe you’ll treble your opt-in rates if you just ask for name and email
address instead of asking for name, email address and physical address.
Ideally, you need to be testing all the time. Once you find a winning page, you
should keep it but continue to test and tweak it to see if you can further improve
conversion rates.

Pillar #2 – Website Design Summary
•Take some time to think about your behind the scenes coding – make your
whole website as efficient as possible, which will help search engines when
they crawl through your site.
•Get your navigation structure right and make sure it’s logical for search
engines and individual users.
•Remember that your website visitors may land on an individual page via a
search engine and good navigation will allow them to quickly understand
where that page is in relation to the rest of your site. This will make your new
visitors more likely to stick around for longer.
•Ensure that you’re aware of the 8 essential aspects of onsite optimization
which will help to improve your search engine rankings.
•Have you considered the precise relevance of each page? Having just the one
topic per page will make life easier for both visitors and search engines.
•By undertaking continuous testing and analyzing what does and doesn’t
work, you can alter the structure of the site to maximize conversion rates.